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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Chicago. I'm proud to be part of the food scene here and there's never a shortage of great places to eat. Wherever you look, there's a new place to check out, an interesting ethnic cuisine to try and an innovative chef to keep tabs on. The other night I attended a special soireé recognizing some of the great food spots in the city. Being at the 2012 Time Out Chicago's Eat Out Awards was like a food version of the Golden Globes... only on a much smaller scale and probably more delicious. At these awards, readers of Time Out Chicago voted for their favorite places and the local critics even highlighted their faves. But before we get to this year's winners, let's talk about the food...

I attended the awards show as part of the Chicago Blogger Network. We're about 300 bloggers large {and growing!} and all of us write blogs on various topics. If you're a Chicagoland blogger and aren't a part of this network, you should be! Check us out here. There were 5 of us bloggers that attended and we all covered the awards show via social media. Some of us conducted interviews with various award nominees, others went all papparazzi on anything and everything happening before, during and after the show, but most of us were glued to our Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and all other social media via smartphone/laptop to share the excitement of the night.

Being that this was a foodcentric event, we were fed well. Really well. Although it wasn't exactly gluten free friendly for me, I managed. I pretty much had more than enough salad and potato chips to hold me. {And I picked through the dishes to eat the non-gluten components.} Above is a shot of some of the tasty eats served...

Then it was show time! Folks gathered around and anxiously awaited for their name to be announced as a winner for one of the 31 awards presented. Below are the winners for each category. Find out more about the winners at timeoutchicago.com/eatoutawards. Congrats to all nominess and winners! If you're in Chicago and/or plan on visiting, please check out these hot spots. There's a reason why they won after all...